


Red

by double_negative



Category: Hatoful Kareshi | Hatoful Boyfriend
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Blood and Injury, Cheating, Co-workers, Color Blindness, M/M, Mentor Crush, Non-Graphic Smut, Terminal Illnesses, Underage Drinking, Workplace Relationship, canon compliant outside of the soulmate thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 14:43:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12083220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/double_negative/pseuds/double_negative
Summary: The only color he has ever known - blood red.The only color he is left with - gray.





	Red

**Author's Note:**

> Friendly reminder that Isa Souma was 8 when he joined Hawk Party and 16 when Ryuuji Kawara died, so technically it's underage. Still there's not much sexual content here and it's not at all explicit. Whether or not it is consensual - for you to decide.
> 
> The type of soulmate AU I'm using is the one where you are completely colorblind until you meet your soulmate and you lose your color vision when your soulmate dies. Toying with the canon fact that Shuu is colorblind after the terrorist bombing and can only see red.

He has only ever knew of color from the books he read as a child.

His parents thought it inappropriate with the positions they held in society to get attached to their only child, leaving Isa to explore the world on his own, surrounded by servants, not friends. Servants who didn't dare to speak to him more than it was necessary. Colors, he read in an encyclopedia, were a way human brain perceives spectres of light. A type of visual perception, connected to the way brain processes different wavelengths and intensities of of electromagnetic radiation.

Colors are also something you can only ever see if you met someone who is your so called "soulmate". Even as a child Isa knew he had no chance. He will grow up alone, with people around afraid to approach him because of who he is, he will marry someone his parents would pick and live an empty life trying to uphold their legacy, loveless and unhappy. It was what was expected of him and Isa knew better than to disagree. It's not like he ever hoped for anything different, that was all he ever knew. It wasn't so bad, knowing how your life will unfold from such a young age. Isa wasn't miserable or depressed, if anything, knowing the outcome was better than anything around him ever had, all the people around him scared of uncertainty and something they called fate and fortune. He knew the path laid out before him from his birth to his death, he had nothing to be afraid of except for boredom.

Maybe because of the belief he was destined to be alone, when Isa first saw color, his mind didn't connect it to the things he's read. It was all gray until the explosion and the impact, the blast wave shattering his glasses. Blinding light filled his vision and searing, burning pain of melting flesh and tiny pieces of glass stuck in his skin were all he could feel for quite some time, as his brain panicked, synapses flaring up chaotically, trying to process what was happening. When Isa's vision came back, he saw it. His mothers blood, splattering across the floor, sickening shade of what he will later realise was color red. His own hand, limp and lifeless at the side of his body, bleeding so badly with that horrible, ugly color. Violent flames licking what remained of his father, a horrid mess of meat and bone.

In his mind, before his consciousness left him, Isa wondered how someone would want to experience something as disgusting disgusting as that, would long for it, seeking it in the colorless world. So he asked about that immidiately upon waking up in a hospital, the last question before his mind turned off from gut-wrenching pain and sensory overload, the first thought that clicked in his mind upon regaining alertness.

"What is the color of blood?", he asked a nurse who rushed in his room upon his awakening and she answered, dumbfounded by the sudenness of that inquiry, with that single word he will grow to hate.

"Red".

With that Isa felt his heart drop, the same putrid taste filling his mouth. Immidiately he knew there was something very, very wrong with him. You don't just pick one color to see, that's not how it was described in the books at all. All he would see from that day will be red. Red stop signs. Red poppys. Red apples.

Doctors would say it was from the sustained brain damage and stress, some kind of chemical imbalance, previously unheard of. They would try to rope him into experimenting, but after a few brain scans and blood tests which all gave an inconclusive answer of "it could happen, but it has never happened before on record" he gave up. He would just stare at his own blood in the test tube, dark, so dark, almost black, but surely just a darker version of red in the completely colorless lab.

In the world of gray those pops of color became like beacons of light, lighthouses in the storm, drawing Isa's attention to them. Maybe that was the reason he chose studying to be a surgeon at such a young age despite being annoyed by how doctors treated him. After all, living beings were red on the inside, he learned it the hard way, all different shades, but still, undeniably, red. The ability to see it and recognize it became a boon in his studies. It was all his parents had left him, an ungodly amount of wealth they accumulated, a hand crisscrossed by wine-red scars and a skill to differentiate between tissues based on their color.

When kids his age were still playing with toys, he would disassemble living organisms for the Earth Crawlers, developing his own techniques and becoming more skilled than those several decades older. They would call him a prodigy, but he never admitted that he really owed his success to being only partially colorblind unlike most people, afraid of being treated like a test subject again. They would call him a demon for his complete disregard of morality, even if they themselves performed horrific experiments, and he would just coldly dismiss the accusations, never caring about being respected, revelling in his craft as the only thing that ever really brought him joy. That was until he got transfered to the Biology Division proper, after proving his capability and cunning, until he got to work under Ryuuji Kawara's guidance.

The first thing he had seen when the man in a labcoat turned to him, grinning widely, completely out of place in the sterile and dull laboratory environment, were his eyes. They were red. The kind of red the rubies were, shining and bright, completely unreal and Isa just stood there, mesmerized, until the man reached out to him and grabbed his arm for a handshake. Isa's mind went completely blank at the touch, partially because people never really expressed the desire to touch him and partially because, well... everything around him suddenly erupted, the red of the man's eyes bleeding into something else and Isa felt like his breath was punched out of him, lightheaded and queezy.

Later he would realise that it was the moment he could see color in full. Later he would learn that the man's hair was deep blue, his skin was light peach and the stains on his labcoat were coffee brown. Later, but for now he only knew that the man's name was Ryuuji Kawara and he was his soulmate. The one he gave up on finding when he was five.

* * *

They became close in the years they spent together in the lab. Closer than Isa had ever been with anyone in his life, but that comparison meant little since he always was alone. They were close enough for Isa to know that the man he grew to like had a wife and a son and that knowledge hurt him so much more than anything before, more than the fire etching twisted patterns into his flesh, more than the ghastly pain still living in the left side of his body. Knowing Ryuuji was his soulmate, something he didn't even dream to have, but also that Isa himself wasn't the one for Ryuuji.

After all, Isa figured, the man had probably already met his soulmate and was married to her. Because Isa knew, Ryuuji had seen colors, as he was one of the people who were never afraid or ashamed to speak about them. "I like grape candy the best, it's purple - just like your eyes", Ryuuji would say, offering a handful of sweets to Isa and Isa woupd hide them in his pocket to later eat, leaving his favourite for last, cherry red, glistening in his hands when he toyed with them, leaving sticky marks on his palms. Cherry red, like Ryuuji's eyes and as sweet as his smiles that he showed Isa plenty of and how Isa wished it was enough.

When their hands brushed while gathering samples, Isa wished for those calloused fingers to braid his hair, when Ryuuji pulled him into a celebratory hug after finishing another project, Isa hoped he would never let go of him. Isa knew what pain was, it was the only thing he was sure of in his life, like his arm erupting in a phantom fire when he used it too much, but he never thought that pain could be brought on by something so simple as a presense of a person near. When he researched why his heart would ache and skip beats, he realised, begrudgingly, it wasn't some kind of disease he had, it was what other people called "love". He loved Ryuuji. For others it would be evident, you are most likely to ever fall for your soulmate, but Isa was never the one to accept such foolish feelings, especially when it was completely illogical to love someone who's already taken.

Logic was what guided him through his life, a cold analytical approach, discarding everything he deemed unnecessary. Love was one of those things. He would rationalize it for hours, completely distracted from the research, that it was because he was still a kid, because Ryuuji was the first person to be kind to him, that every living person needs affection to survive and Ryuuji was the only one he truly respected, so it's completely normal he would grow attached like this. And Ryuuji noticed, because it was unlike Isa to mix up the specimens, lost in thought. Ryuuji would notice and correct his mistakes, leaning over his shoulder, guiding Isa's hand, bringing his attempts at justification to an abrupt end, as Isa would melt against the warmth of another's body, so completely irrational, so completely wrong and still, so heartachingly delightful.

They spent more and more time together, Ryuuji working overtime because it's just how he does things and Isa sticking around. He would tell himself that he does it so he would watch over Ryuuji to ensure every experiment went correctly, but anyone would know it's a lie he told himself to justify his affections. Because however sloppy Ryuuji was when he worked, he always achieved a good result, even if on something completely unrelated to the task on hand. They would spend long nights at each other's side, taking turns getting food from the cafeteria and napping right on their desks, and more often than not, Isa would wake to a note on his table, accompanied by some candy and a warm mug of coffee. "Don't forget to eat". "Let's try our best today too". "You've done great, Isa". Completely unnecessary, because Ryuuji was right there and there was no end to the words of encouragement he directed towards Isa even without those notes, but Isa would still treasure them, stashing every tiny piece of paper into a folder in the lowest drawer of his work desk. He couldn't bring himself to do the same for Ryuuji.

The older man has not only showed Isa a colorful world, he showed him a world full of warmth. Their lab became a place he was excited to go to every day from the loneliness of his own flat provided by the Hawks and soon he noticed it was the same for Ryuuji too, as the man would spend most of his days cooped up with Isa and nights sleeping on the unused dissection table in the back of the laboratory. It was because he loved the research, Isa thought, but knowing that Ryuuji almost never went home to the family he was supposed to put before anything else, gave him hope. Stupid useless hope there was something else to it all.

And with that hope, the colors became even brighter, even highlighted words on work papers, even the colored chemicals in the beakers, even the innards of their test subjects blooming with that hope Isa hated so much to entertain. He is not yours, he would repeat to himself over and over, when Ryuuji held his hand or brought him close for a hug. He acts that way with everyone, Isa would remind himself incessantly and still...

And still, Isa would wonder. How it would feel to kiss that smiling face? Would it be just as warm as Ryuuji's silly grins or even more so? Would it finally bring him peace of mind? Would it heal his broken heart to know, he is loved, he is cherished. Still, Isa's mind would return less and less to Ryuuji's supposed soulmate wife and the child that the man left at home. Surely, those do not matter that much to him if he spends almost every day at the lab they two share?

Isa would get his answers one of the nights they spent together at the lab. They've been celebrating the end of their last project and now Ryuuji was going away on a trip overseas to gather more data. Perhaps that's why he brought drinks, despite Isa still being a minor. Later, Isa would recall that night and admit to himself, Ryuuji clearly planned it all from the beginning, knowing that they would be separated for a couple of months because of that trip. Because he wouldn't be able to face what he was going to do. Not with that cheerful smile and easy-going attitude he always exhibited.

They both weren't drunk and both knew that drinking was just an excuse for doing something so wrong. Because there's no more talking about what's about to come and the results they're hoping to achieve, there's the clashing of lips and a shared faint taste of Ryuuji's cigarettes and candy on Isa's tongue. There's the look in Ryuuji's eyes, usually bright red, but now deep burgundy in the dimmed light, his pupils lust-blown.

And if Isa wondered before how it would be to have sex with that man, he never thought in his wildest fantasies about it actually happening. The thoughts he had were like those supportive notes in the hidden folder, filed away in the deepest recesses of his mind, never to see the light of day. When it happens, it's nothing like Isa's daydreams, there's no incredible heat rolling off in waves, no crushing weight of the other upon his body, nothing like that at all. Ryuuji is gentle and careful and treats Isa like a treasure, as he teases and stretches him open with those dexterous hands. His voice is a soothing croon that is almost surreal, because in Isa's mind it's both what he wanted all that time and something so incredibly disgusting and out of place that he couldn't fathom even thinking about it. Because as Ryuuji pushes in, he's more cautious with Isa than he is with any precious specimen they have, completely unlike himself, so much so that Isa wants to scream at him, "stop it", "go home to your family", "you don't have to do this", "you don't have to force yourself", but what comes out of his mouth is "I love you I love you I love I love you please stay, never go". And Ryuuji tries to smile like he always does, but it clashes so much with his eyes, full with sadness and something much like regret when he finally says the words Isa only before heard in his dreams.

"I love you too".

Ryuuji runs away after that. Of course he does, leaving Isa alone to gather the pieces of himself and figure out what happened between them. He spends those two months actually working on schedule, clocking out as soon as his work shift ends, because he cannot bear the lab even for one extra minute. Looking at a place they shared... whatever it has been and not seeing that precious face. Knowing that his soulmate is a coward and a cheater, but also understanding completely and wanting more. Isa's head spins from the bloom of color around and his heart is already broken.

* * *

And then, Ryuuji returns to the country. Isa doesn't get notified at first. He sits in the lab alone, clutching a bag of their favourite candy, going through all the words he wants to say, waiting, but Ryuuji never comes.

* * *

At some point Isa's superiors tell him that Ryuuji has caught something while he was abroad. That he was sick and probably contageous, but he will certainly return to work, because he's an invaluable asset. Isa works through the pain, through worry and fear, because research never stops and even when he's alone he has to do this. Every day without Ryuuji beside feels like torture, but he shuts the feeling out.

She calls him one day. The soulmate-wife. Isa doesn't even understand it's her when he picks up the phone call from an unknown number, there's just quiet sobbing and sniveling at the other end and he thinks of hanging up, but just as he reaches for the button (so offensively red) there's a voice, quiet, distraught.

"He's dying. It's all your fault".

Somehow Isa immidiately knows.

"He wants to see you", she starts to dictate the address, hiccuping and stuttering, not even bothering to wait for him to get his pen. When she finishes, she hangs up without another word.

If Isa was almost used to the concept of loving someone before, now he had to learn what being hated felt like. The world around him blurs in sickening splatters of color as he, too, starts crying.

* * *

Isa sits on a cot in the corner of the hospital room, completely stiff, so his teeth would stop chattering and his hands cease their shaking. He can't even bear to look at the man he loves so much so he tries to focus on the medical equipment, recounting how it's made, what parts it consists of and how it's used, but his mind always comes back to the man hooked up to all these machines, to the fact that it's Ryuuji connected to all these tubes and electrodes. So Isa starts counting red objects in a room, a nervous habit he picked up after the accident. There's a plastic clock high up on the wall, ticking too loud. There's blood in the transfusion bag. There's a billboard outside. There are rims of his own glasses that he can see faintly on the edge of his field of view. Not much. There are also Ryuuji's eyes, at least there are supposed to be, because now they're closed and no one knows if he would ever open them again.

* * *

She stiffens her upper lip and turns her face away. She's beautiful, more beautiful than Isa imagined, someone truly fit for a person as bright and loud as Ryuuji. Her expression is pure steel, filled with disdain and if not for the puffiness under her eyes, barely concealed by makeup, Isa wouldn't have found it in himself to feel sorry for her. Their kid is right behind her, sheepishly trailing after his mother, trying to conceal himself in her shadow. He's an exact copy of Ryuuji, navy tousled hair and ruby eyes, and Isa's broken heart is grinded into dust, guilt smothering him like a noose around his neck. He knows, it's nothis fault that Ryuuji chose him over his gorgeous wife and kid, he knows it's not his fault Ryuuji chose to have sex with someone who's closer in age to his son than his wife. He knows, just as they know. It was not his fault, but if it fixes anything, Isa is ready to admit to it all being his responsibility, he's ready to be hated.

Isa wants to apologize, he wants to offer his condolences, to make promises to do anything, everything for both of them, but instead he pushes past Mrs. Kawara's commanding frame feeling her cold gaze on his back.

It's not his fault that Ryuuji wanted to spend his last moments with Isa and not with them.

* * *

It's painful to even look at him in that bed, so sickly pale, trying to smile at Isa like he used to, but failing miserably. It's obvious, it hurts Ryuuji to speak, but he still does, his voice no more than a whisper when he beckons Isa towards himself. He talks, his voice dry and brittle, like an autumn leaf, he pauses for longer with every word he utters and all Isa could do is watch and listen.

"Before I met you, I never knew this world was so bright and colourful".

Isa doesn't understand. Why now. Why him. He should have never told him. It's unfair, it's so unfair, you can't leave me now, he wants to scream, but he just keeps listening. Ryuuji's smile is broken and forced and the truth spills from his lips, the words he could not say for years and years they spent together. The man Isa loves is a coward, a cheater and a liar and all this time Isa was his. His destiny. His soulmate.

"Promise this stupid old man that if you ever find your soulmate, you'll never lie to them like I did to you, Isa".

Something is stinging behind Isa's eyes and once it becomes unbearable, he just closes them. When he opens them again, the man before him is nothing but a corpse. When he opens them again, the only thing he could see is gray.

The clock on the wall. The blood in the transfusion bag. The billboard outside the window. The rims of his glasses. The blood on his knuckles as he screams and punches the wall. The crosses on the uniform of a nurse that leads him away. The eyes of Ryuuji's kid, following him outside.

Everything is swallowed in gray.

**Author's Note:**

> As usual inspired by music. Today's flavor is The Antlers, especially "Epilogue"
> 
>  
> 
> _I've woken up, I'm in our bed, but there's no breathing body there beside me_  
>  _Someone must have taken you while I was stuck asleep_  
>  _But I know better as my eyes adjust_  
>  _You've been gone for quite a while now, and I don't work there in the hospital_  
>  _(They had to let me go)_
> 
>  
> 
> How many times will I write Ryuuji dying.  
> But well, my interpretation of Ryuuji is much darker than usual in this fic. He's not a good person.


End file.
